This whole blog posting is very US (and US politics) focused, but the issues are similar in other countries.  Also, this blog is trying to describe the existing situation, not argue that the current situation is good, bad, or should be changed.  It is just describing how things are. When I first starting blogging, over 15 years ago, I thought it might be a useful idea to have a "Voter's Guide To T1D" style blog.  I would discuss who to vote for if all you cared about was T1D, why one candidate was the best for T1D research, how your vote would impact T1D research, and so on.&nbs ..read more

My previous blog posting: https://cureresearch4type1diabetes.blogspot.com/2023/12/diamyd-update.html described the main line of DIAGNODE clinical trials designed to get Diamyd FDA approval for people in their honeymoon phase.  You should read that posting for a lot of background material.  In this blog, I'm going to cover two additional clinical trials aimed at expanding the people who can use this treatment and some interesting details about how JDRF is funding this research. DIAGNODE Expansion Trials These two trials are using the same DIAGNODE technique (injecting Diamyd into the ..read more

Levicure is a startup which is currently raising money to fund a phase-II trial for a combination therapy designed to prevent or delay T1D if given during the honeymoon period.  This blog posting is reporting on the results of their retrospective phase-I clinical trial.  That trial has already been completed and is motivating them to move forward with a larger phase-II trial.  The combination therapy used three medicines: GABA, Sitagliptin or Saxagliptin (which are dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors), and Omeprazole (a proton pump inhibitor).  All three of these drugs a ..read more

This clinical trial represents an attack on T1D slightly different than anything I've blogged on before. Pleconaril and Ribavirin are both antiviral drugs.  The idea here is that viruses either cause T1D or contribute to it, and that attacking viruses during the early honeymoon period will do something good.   Maybe delay the onset, extend the honeymoon, or even allow the long term survival of more beta cells to lower long term complications of T1D.   I want to stress that this "virus causes T1D" hypothesis is just that: a hypothesis.  It is held by some researchers, b ..read more

Baricitinib (trade name Olumiant) is a drug which targets the immune system, and is already approved for Rheumatoid Arthritis (since 2018) and Alopecia Areata (since 2022).  Since these two diseases are both autoimmune diseases, like T1D, it makes sense that this drug would be tried for T1D as well.  This drug is called a JAK inhibitor, and it blocks both JAK variants: JAK1 and JAK2.  JAK inhibitors have been an active area of research because of some case studies where they seem to impact T1D when people took them for other conditions.  I blogged on this once before ..read more

At the start of a new year, some bloggers write a posting on the year that was, and a some write a posting on what they expect in the new year.  This posting is a little of each.  The Big News From Last Year Teplizumab! Which became the product Tzield.  Getting a drug approved that actually changed the course of T1D is a big deal.  I know it is for people at-risk, not people who have T1D.  I know it only delays the onset of T1D.  I know it is incredibly expensive.  Those things matter, especially in the short term, but in the long term this is still a huge br ..read more

This is my first update on the Diamyd company in many, many years.  It is focused on their DIAGNODE-3 clinical trial, but before I discuss that one study, I cover Diamyd's history, and after I discuss the study, I've included a list of all the studies the company has done (which is a lot: about 19 studies in about 20 years). But that is not all that Diamyd is active with.  In a future blog, probably in February, I'm going to discuss two more clinical trials which are important to applying Diamyd to at-risk people and people with LADA.  DIAGNODE-3 is focused on honeymooners.  ..read more

In this blog I'm going to report on three different clinical trials involving transplantation.  The basic idea for all of these is to transplant beta cells into someone with T1D, and those new beta cells will produce insulin and cure the person.  As I describe below, this idea has been around for 40 years, but it has not been successful in the past because of two problems: First, the body's immune system attacks the transplanted cells because it is working properly and they are foreign cells.  Second, the body's immune system attacks the new cells because it is broken and mistak ..read more

Teplizumab (sold as Tzield) was recently approved for use in people at-risk of diagnosis for T1D.  At risk meaning people who have two autoantibodies and abnormal blood glucose measurements, but not yet requiring insulin injections.  However, this phase-III study was testing its effectiveness on people after diagnosis; people in the honeymoon stage.  The goal is to get Tzield approved for honeymooners in addition to the current approval for at-risk people. This was a large study: 328 people, 217 got the treatment and 111 were in the control group.  The people were all betw ..read more

In the US, we are in the "Walking Season" when JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) asks us to walk to raise money for a cure for type-1 diabetes. So I'd like to do my part, by reminding you all of how important JDRF is to the human trials of potential cures for T1D, which I track. Let me give you the punch line up front: 65% of the treatments currently in human trials have been funded by JDRF.  This is a strong impact; one that any non-profit should be proud of.  Below is a list of all the treatments, grouped by phase, and separated into trials that JDRF has funded ..read more